Michael Miltenberger

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. When you see the information, it might ring a bell because it was put in all our business plans through the years as we developed the work, but we'll get that information for committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can't add anything further at this point, but we'll get the information that committee requested.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I'll make sure we forward the information to the chair of Social Programs for her perusal.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Back in the year 2000 there was a fund agreed to at the First Ministers of Health meetings under their primary health care transition fund. About $4.7 million was our share and there were 11 projects that were developed across the North. The program took a long time to unfold. One of the projects that was agreed to was to look at how do we advance our primary health care model, which would allow us to integrate our services at the community level with the nurse practitioners and the doctors and the nurses. Back then the plan was to do some modifications to the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate and note the Member's concern, and I want to assure the Member that we work every day to try to make sure we provide the highest level of service possible. When there are circumstances that happen where the systems may not have worked appropriately, we backtrack on those and we try to take the steps necessary to make sure that, in fact, services are provided. I would like to point out that, yes, there are times when things don't work and those are unfortunate, but the vast majority of time, medical travel works in a good, efficient way. But in the cases...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the Members for supporting this bill, but I would just like to take this moment to acknowledge and recognize that this will be deputy minister Dave Murray’s last appearance before this House, that he will be moving on out of government into the rest of his life. I would just like to thank him for all the work he’s done on our behalf. It’s been a pleasure having him at the table.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It came from me. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s good advice and we’ve made note of that and we will be rolling out a communication plan and we will be ensuring that every community is made fully aware of this very new and important piece of legislation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there has been work done looking at what would be required to modernize and rewrite this legislation. We are going to continue to pay as much attention as we can to that issue as we try to conclude with major pieces of legislation currently underway. It comes down to a capacity and resource issue. The Member’s points are all accurate and valid. This is an outdated piece of legislation. We will make our best efforts to make sure that we have as much work done so that, at the start of the next Assembly, it can be picked up and moved forward. Thank you.